


In the Shadow of the Valley

by furiosity



Category: Fallout: New Vegas, Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AoKaga Day, Crossover, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-03-29 22:57:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3913801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aomine Daiki is a disillusioned mercenary turned bounty hunter running from his past. Kagami Taiga is a former vault rat traversing North America on his way to a dream. Their meeting doesn't change the world, but it will change their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ain't that a Kick in the Head

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crossover with Fallout: New Vegas (plus some Fallout 3 and to some extent other titles in the series). It is set approximately around the time the events of Fallout: New Vegas begin. I'm playing a little fast and loose with the Fallout canon, though -- for one, both Courier Six and the Lone Wanderer in this are female, not male, and also they're both paragons, making the most moral/good choices every time. The Courier in particular is a super slow starter; she's going to kick around Goodsprings/Primm a lot longer than most players would. Some named (and generic) NPCs from New Vegas will feature in this (and the named ones will be added to the listing as they appear if they actually interact with the main characters) but this is primarily a story about Aomine and Kagami (though not about basketball) with a couple of other KnB character cameos/mentions. The point of view will switch every chapter, and each chapter will pick up more or less where the previous one left off. The first chapter is more of a prologue, though. 
> 
> Please note that while there will be no explicit rape or underage sex descriptions or any graphic depictions of violence/gore, the Fallout world is a harsh post-nuclear wasteland, and while society and law are both present to some extent, they do not rule, and a lot of terrible things happen to people all the time, both at the hands of other people and the, uh, appendages of giant mutated monsters. There _will_ be references to rape and child sexual abuse as well as a somewhat desensitised approach to violence, particularly gun violence, and loss of human life.
> 
> The Kuroko no Basket characters aren't "dropped into" this world from their own canon; I am writing them in limited third-person as though they had been born into and grown up in the Fallout universe, so while I will cover their in-world backstories as necessary, I will not be providing any direct explanations for things that would be self-evident to the characters. So if you are unfamiliar with the Fallout games (i.e. the skills, perks, factions, weaponry, economy, creatures, etc), you will probably encounter things that sound strange or confusing. Feel free to ask me if you don't understand something, I'll be happy to explain or provide a link that explains better than I would. ^^
> 
> Title is from [In the Shadow of the Valley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lrWx7-PiUM) by Bing Nathan and Raun Burnham.

_In the shadow of the valley_  
_I would like to settle down_  
_Wide open space_  
_Wind on my face--_

"I wish I could get some wind on my face," Aomine muttered, shutting off the Pip-Boy's radio. He mopped sweat from his forehead with an edge of his shirt sleeve. Not that it helped much: the cuff felt like cardboard against his skin. He'd get a new shirt next time he found one for sale. Or just get one off a corpse. More caps for ammo that way.

He crouched behind a car husk, watching a radscorpion scuttle behind the rusting carcass of a once-blue bus. He could've just shot the thing, but there were usually a lot of them around at this time of day. No need to draw their attention: nobody would pay him for a heap of dead bugs.

Somebody _was_ going to pay him for the recharger pistol he got off the junkie up at the Nipton Road pit stop, though. Hell, if he was lucky, he could offload it at the Mojave Outpost tonight. Lacey wasn't all that friendly but she liked energy weapons just fine. Maybe she would even have a shirt in stock.

Aomine peered out at the road: all clear. Twenty more minutes and he'd be safe behind NCR fences. With all the commotion over at the old prison, he was willing to bet lots of the rangers were out patrolling by Primm. That should guarantee him a cot for the night.

Besides, the Jackal he'd been tracking was probably spending the money she stole from McMurphy on bad hooch and worse sex at the Nipton hotel right about now. Aomine would get a good night's rest and catch up with her as she stumbled, hungover, along the road to Novac. The Great Khans didn't care about the money, anyway; they cared about the chem recipe she'd taken without knowing what it was.

Aomine glanced once more to the northeast. A thin trail of dark smoke rose into the sky from Nipton's direction, and the colour reminded him of home so sharply he could practically smell the burning rubber. At the start of planting season in Yucca Valley, folks would haul a tire to the village green, light it up and leap over it as a prayer for good crops. Aomine never understood it, even as a kid: as long as they paid their dues to the New California Republic government, there would be safe access to water. Jumping over a burning tire didn't do anything except occasionally set people's pants on fire.

Tetsu would say there was no harm in letting people think they had something to do with things beyond their control. But Aomine wasn't going to think about Tetsu. He had trading to do and whiskey to drink and a mark to pursue. Sure, he'd always had one or all of these things to keep his mind occupied ever since Tetsu left and the Navarro Company disbanded. But it's not like he was trying to keep busy on purpose to avoid thinking about the choices he'd made. A man had to eat.

_Is the smoke over Nipton getting thicker? Maybe I should check it out--_

Aomine shook his head resolutely. Nipton was a three-hour walk from here, and he was done with distance for the day. He wound among the abandoned cars littering the broken asphalt all the way up to the Unification monument. Along the way, he crawled inside a couple of trailers to check crates and toolboxes: people often left their stashes in these junked-out carcasses, hoping no one would happen by before they returned. Someone always happened by, though. Scavenging was part of every way of life in the Mojave wastes.

He found a wrench, two bottles of Nuka-Cola, and a whole roll of Med-X syringes. He took the Med-X, waited for another radscorpion to scamper off into the hills, then ascended to the Outpost. The sun was just about done for the day, too, and it bathed the two enormous ranger statues of the Unification monument in a soft, pretty glow that Tetsu would've compared to something fanciful from one of those pre-war books he was always reading.

"Nah, fuck that," Aomine muttered.

"I'll drink to that," said the trooper standing under the monument. "You headed to the barracks?"

"Sure am."

"Tell Lacey not to sell all the beer before sundown, would ya?"

Aomine gave a little nod and continued along the row of broken cars and trailers on his right. _Prepare to Stop_ , read a peeling, bullet-ridden green sign mounted above that section of the former highway. Aomine didn't know why the sign was there. Had there been security checkpoints before the war? He couldn't think of a reason for them, seeing as the enemy had been way across the sea. The war didn't go on long enough to call for domestic security measures: nuclear weapons were efficient that way. Maybe the sign was a holdover from some ancient custom of stopping along the road to give thanks to the road gods. Or to pay a road usage fee.

Once past the sandbags and the fence perimeter, he pushed open the barracks door and walked into the dimly lit bar. At the counter, Lacey was dickering with another merchant. A few off-duty troopers sat at a corner table dicing and drinking vodka. The radio on a shelf behind Lacey was dialled up to the max, blasting a Radio New Vegas news report -- something about lakelurk sightings in the sewers. Ridiculous as usual. This place was where he'd first arrived after leaving NCR to become a bounty hunter three years ago, and sometimes it felt a little bit like home. So it was nice that it never changed.

Cass, a caravan owner Aomine drank with sometimes, was on her usual stool near the kitchen entrance, talking to a drifter with tu-tone hair Aomine didn't recognise from the back. It was weird to see her talking to anyone new: she usually rebuffed any attempts at conversation. Aomine had had to buy her a half dozen rounds before she'd decided he was a little all right.

As the door shut behind Aomine with a loud thud, everyone looked up to see who had entered. Cass's companion turned around, too, and all of a sudden, Aomine understood every love song left in the world. His chest felt tight, his heart sped up, and his mouth went dry and fell open; he felt like he couldn't take his eyes off this beautiful stranger if he tried.

This was obviously not what Aomine's mom had meant when she urged him to find a fine Japanese girl to marry, but this guy _was_ Japanese and he looked real fine. Two out of three couldn't be all bad. He looked about Aomine's age -- twenty-two, give or take -- had broad shoulders, bright red eyes and a wide, generous mouth. More than anything, Aomine wanted to see him smile.

On the radio, Dean Martin helpfully supplied:

_Tell me quick--_  
_ain't love a kick_  
_in the head?_

It felt more like a heavily armoured knee to the solar plexus, though.

The stranger noticed him staring and frowned, turning back around. _Guess the feeling isn't mutual._ Not that Aomine expected anything else. He may have been temporarily blind-sided just now, but he wasn't an idiot. He expected nothing, really. He would spend a nice evening here, pretending to be inside a love song. He'd buy this guy a drink or two, tell a couple of stories. Then they'd go their separate ways. The wasteland was no place for sentimental crap.

Aomine walked over to the bar and took a seat on the other side of the U-shaped counter. He wanted to look at his brand new crush, to see more of him than just his face. He wanted to say something cool to impress him, break the ice a little. Maybe drop his name -- he wasn't exactly a nobody around here -- show him that Aomine wasn't some weird leering pervert. He kind of wished he'd sprung for a new shirt before showing up here, too. A brown shirt. The girls up in Westside all said browns really brought out the colour of his eyes.

In short, he was smitten in a way he couldn't remember being since before his mercenary days. So, naturally, he avoided eye contact and addressed Cass with the stupidest thing he could possibly have said.

"Hey, Cassidy. Thought you had higher standards than Big and Ugly over there."

Cass made a face at him. "Well ain't you a font of New California hospitality. Boy's named Kagami, just came up the I-15 tonight. Say hello and don't be such a rude little prick."

"Where from?" Aomine asked, staring down at a permanent dark purple stain on the bar counter. If he wasn't from the NCR, where did he come from? Someone with eyes this clear couldn't be from Caesar's Legion, could he?

"The DC wasteland," came the reply in a deep, rich voice that would have stirred Aomine's feelings even more if he weren't so surprised at _what_ he heard.

He whistled, looking up. "You mean like... the East Coast?"

Their eyes met again, and Aomine smiled a helpless kind of smile that never asks permission. The stranger -- Kagami; his name was Kagami -- grinned back, and Aomine's heart began to dissolve into useless goo.

 _Oh, no._ He really should have just gone on to Nipton. 

He turned away, biting his lip, wishing Lacey would hurry the fuck up with her transaction so he could at least order a drink to hide behind.

"Well, slap my ass and ride me to New Canaan," Cass exclaimed. "I didn't think I'd ever see you at a loss for words, big fella."

Aomine scoffed. "Like you meet people from out east every day." At least he could pretend that all this was about surprise at Kagami's origins. He had to do something to alienate Kagami, quickly. Another smile would put him in the fucking ground.

"I meet all kinds of people," Cass said, a touch defensively. "The other day a courier came in here, said she'd been shot in the head and left for dead up in Goodsprings."

"What kind of dumb asshole attacks a courier?" Aomine remarked.

"So it's the same thing here as everywhere, huh," Kagami said.

"What do you mean?" Cass asked.

Kagami shrugged and gestured vaguely. "People trying to kill each other."

Aomine pointed at the AER9 stock peering out from behind Kagami's back. "So that's what, an accessory? Does it make you feel pretty?"

Kagami gave him a look of such distrust Aomine's heart ached, making him regret his own words. He'd _meant_ to hurt Kagami's feelings, so why did he feel like a chump? He really needed to get the entire fuck away from this guy.

"I don't like using it, but I don't have a fucking death wish," Kagami said, not looking at him.

Cass laughed and took another swig of whiskey. "Ooh, watch out, he's got bite. Why don't you hire Aomine here to watch your back, sugar? He knows the land, well as anyone."

"I'm a bounty hunter, not a babysitter," Aomine said.

"I don't need help," Kagami said. "Especially not from mercenary garbage."

"I said _bounty hunter_ ," Aomine retorted. "Do words have different meanings out east or are you just stupid?"

Kagami's frown deepened. "I know a merc when I see one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aomine asked. His heart just kept sinking, even though this was going exactly the way he wanted. Or thought he wanted. He couldn't stop thinking about Kagami's smile. He couldn't stop wishing he'd see it again.

"I gotta go," Kagami said, getting off the bar stool. "Thanks for the tip about Sloan, Miss Cassidy; you take care now."

"What the fuck was his problem?" Aomine asked after the door slammed shut behind Kagami's back. All he had to do now was get blind drunk and find a cot. Hopefully by tomorrow morning he'd stop feeling like he'd swallowed a hundred live fire ants: his guts burned with that much guilt and regret.

Cass smiled dreamily. "Remember when we played Caravan and I let you have your caps back in exchange for a future favour? You do anything I say short of getting yourself dead, no questions asked. Remember?"

"No," Aomine said. He remembered it well enough, but he had a really bad feeling about what Cass's favour would entail.

"You go and keep him safe until he finds a way to get to where he's going."

"Where's he going?" Aomine asked, unable to help himself.

"Someplace called Japan."

"Are you kidding? That's across the fucking ocean."

"I'm not telling you to follow him there, but you're gonna help him find his way."

"No, I'm not."

Cass's eyebrows shot up so high that even her hat seemed to tip backwards. "So you'll go back on your word?"

Aomine clenched his teeth and exhaled heavily through his nose. "No," he said. "I guess I won't."

"Then you'd best get going. He's headed up to Freeside by way of Novac. He was gonna make for Sloan but he didn't know about the deathclaws."

Aomine got up from the stool. "So I see him safe to Freeside and we're done, right? Favour over."

"You're done once he's on the way to his Japan."

"Remind me never to play Caravan with you again," Aomine said, making for the doors.

[to be continued]


	2. By a Campfire on the Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring the difference between deserts and wastelands, one-sided negotiations, Aomine as a one-man army, Kagami's gut instinct, a discussion of pre-War insects, a campfire dinner, a Totally Serious™ marriage proposal, and all the stars in the western sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "By a Campfire on the Trail" by Sons of the Pioneers (and the homonymous quest in Fallout: New Vegas).

Kagami stood beneath the two huge metal-plated rangers -- the Statue of Unity or something, Miss Cassidy had called it -- and looked out over the little bit of the Mojave he could see. He had been to all kinds of places since leaving the Capital Wasteland, but landscape like this was a first. 

A prospector he'd stayed with in River City had told him that the Mojave had been spared the worst of the nuclear devastation, and now that Kagami looked at it, that felt like an understatement. People said that the nuclear detonations had turned the whole world into a desert, but they were wrong. There were colours in this place: dirty green bushes dotting the dry, cracked silt, dark orange rock formations so vivid they looked painted, and real, honest-to-goodness flowers, white and yellow and pink. The sky, too, was bluer than he'd ever seen. If he ignored the auto-wreckage down along the road and just looked out into the distance, he could almost pretend there had never been a war. 

Judging by the Mojave, the rest of the world should've _wished_ it were a desert.

But he didn't have time to stand around and gawk at the scenery. Daylight would start to fade soon, and he'd heard tell Mojave nights were as cold as its days were hot. His plan had been to spend the night at the ranger outpost, but he'd almost gotten into a fight there, so the plan had to change. 

Kagami squinted at the map on his Pip-Boy. If he followed this road as it bent to the northeast, he'd reach Nipton -- the closest settlement -- by nightfall. He set a marker on the map to make sure he didn't stray off course and flipped the radio switch to find something to listen to while walking.

Mojave Music Radio was playing an energetic rock-and-roll number without words; Kagami didn't recognise it but he wouldn't have minded more of the same. Radio New Vegas was in the middle of a news broadcast -- something about a monorail line. The announcer had a pleasant, deep voice that gave Kagami a weird vibe, like listening to a ghost. A third station -- Black Mountain Radio -- was out of range.

He flipped back over to the map to see if he had a Black Mountain marked on there. There was Sloan -- Miss Cassidy had marked it for him. Deathclaw territory started there. Due a bit east of it the terrain showed a tall mountain with a squiggle of a road leading to the top. Was that Black Mountain? There was another mountain marking due north of there, and entire ranges to the southeast.

He'd just have to ask someone if it was worth a visit. Lots of crashed vertibirds in mountainous regions, and if Kagami couldn't find a working one, he'd have to find someone to help him build one, so all the scrap parts he could get would be--

"Hey, uh, Kagami, wait up!"

Startled, Kagami turned around, immediately stiffening. The merc from the Mojave Outpost bar -- the one who looked so friendly and then pulled a one-eighty for some reason -- was hurrying up the path. He didn't look hostile any more, but that didn't mean anything. Raiders who antagonised from a distance didn't live very long in a world with more weapons than people. Still, this guy looked for all the world like he was asking his trail buddy not to get too far ahead.

"That's far enough," Kagami said, edging so he could duck behind the massive ranger leg if any shooting started. "What are you after?"

The merc stopped and showed two empty hands to Kagami. "Yeah, see, I'm gonna be your lookout for a while."

Kagami frowned. "The hell you are." Did this guy think that Kagami was some kind of hippie pacifist, easy prey? "I don't need a lookout."

"You're in the Mojave. Everyone needs a lookout. My name's Aomine, by the way."

"I don't care," Kagami said. "Just walk away."

"Look, I don't _want_ to do this, but Miss Rose of _fucking_ Sharon Cassidy, pardon my German, made me give my word. If you don't want me hanging around you, fine, then I'll just track you from a distance. So don't start shooting if you see me, all right?"

"Your word?" Kagami asked with derision. "You're a mercenary."

"I prefer 'soldier of fortune'. And so what if I am? Keeping our word is part of how we do business."

"Your word's only good until someone pays you enough to break it."

"Oh, and you're important enough for someone to pay me that much?" Aomine murmured with a slow smirk. "You some kinda wasteland celebrity?"

Kagami felt like a buffoon. "Didn't say I was important," he muttered.

"Then you have nothing to worry about. I owed Cass a favour; she cashed it in because she took a shine to you. Go ask her if you don't believe me."

Kagami was not about to march back into the bar and take up any more of Miss Cassidy's time, though. His options were few. One, let this swaggering loudmouth tag along with him. Two, ignore the man and keep on going, let him follow as he likes. Three, try to convince Aomine to leave him be. He wasn't much of a smooth talker, so that last one probably wouldn't work, and he didn't have any caps to spare. If he let Aomine follow at a distance, he'd be on constant guard -- he _hated_ being followed. That left letting him tag along. Doing that also gave Kagami the best chance of getting rid of him: once Aomine fell asleep, Kagami would simply leave him there and keep going.

"Fine," he said. "You can stick with me. But I might change my mind."

"You won't change your mind," Aomine said. "I'm awesome. You'll love me."

"I'm not paying you," Kagami said, hoisting his pack up onto his shoulders. "So don't bother sweet-talking me."

He started down the road without another backwards glance.

Aomine caught up to him. "Might wanna give the road a miss," he said in a too-casual tone. "There's a rest stop nearby full of junkie gangers. I may have annoyed them a little bit earlier."

Kagami blinked. "Annoyed them a little bit how?"

"Sleep-gassed their boss and stole one of her toys," Aomine said, extracting a mint-condition repeater from inside his vest. 

Now that Kagami looked at him a bit closer, Aomine was carrying a goddamn arsenal. Assault rifle across his back, shotgun on his shoulder, two handguns -- one on his hip, one in a thigh-holster a little lower. Grenade belt across his chest, vest pockets bulging with boxes of ammunition. Kagami was willing to bet that under the vest were at least three more energy weapons besides the repeater. It was comforting, in a way: if this guy had really wanted to harm him, Kagami would have been extremely harmed already.

_And why didn't I notice all the hardware he's carrying sooner? Where the hell was I looking while we were talking?_ He'd only spent a week in NCR-protected territory and already he was letting his guard down way too easily. Maybe he really _did_ need a lookout.

He sighed and adjusted the course on his Pip-Boy to take them off-road.

"See? I'm useful," Aomine said, tucking the repeater back into his clothes.

"Useful my ass," Kagami returned. "If you hadn't stirred them up, maybe we could've sneaked past them."

"Hey, I didn't go there to pick a fight," Aomine protested. "I was just passing by. They attacked _me_."

"The Mojave's got some dumb gangers if they attack people who look like they're about to start another world war," Kagami remarked.

"Thanks," Aomine said, beaming.

"It wasn't a compliment," Kagami said, trying vainly not to smile back. It was so ingrained in him thanks to his Vault upbringing that even now, four years after surfacing, he had little control over it. "Where were you headed, anyway?" he asked, looking away. His boots made soft crunching sounds on the silt and gravel as the two of them left the road.

"Nipton," Aomine said. "A mark stole a special chem recipe from my employers but doesn't know it yet. I hope."

"You use chems?" Kagami asked, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice even though he knew it was stupid to judge.

"Hell no," Aomine said, clearly offended. "They're good business though."

Kagami, who was far from refusing to scavenge chems he came across in the wastes, only nodded. Sometimes chems were all people would pay for, and he needed all the caps he could get.

"Huh. That fire's still burning," Aomine said, frowning at the trail of smoke further northeast.

The smoke plume was thick and dark, angling a little in the breeze that whispered through the creosote bushes. The air smelled very faintly of burning rubber. Kagami's guts began to twist with unnamable dread. "What is it?"

"I dunno," Aomine said. "But it's weird. Been like that since I came up to the outpost."

"We're not gonna go that way," Kagami said abruptly. Something terrible would happen if he went to Nipton. That churning feeling had never steered him wrong, and in his years of wandering, he'd learned to trust his instincts. It was why he was still alive. 

Aomine looked reluctant. "I have business in Nipton, though."

"If you have business there, then you should go there," Kagami said. "I ain't your keeper. Me, I'm staying away. I haven't even seen the place but it's giving me the heebies."

Aomine scratched his head. "Well, if we're going to Novac, there isn't much between here and Ranger Station Charlie, and we won't get there before dark. You don't wanna go off-roadin' in the Mojave at night unless you enjoy being laid up with a twisted ankle or worse. Mole rat holes everywhere."

"You need a roof to sleep under?" Kagami asked.

Aomine flushed. "Of course not, don't make fun of me."

"I wasn't," Kagami protested. "People have their preferences. I was gonna say if you need a roof, we could head back to the outpost. I only left because you pissed me off." Plus he'd have an easier time sneaking away at the outpost. People probably came and went at all hours.

"Nah," Aomine said. "Cass is still back there, and I don't wanna see her for a while. She kind of threw a wrench into my plans for the next little while, see." He gestured between the two of them.

Kagami shrugged. "Look, I won't tell her if you won't. Go your own way and I'll go mine. If I ever see her again and she asks, I'll tell her you were the best lookout in the world."

Aomine raised his eyebrows. "I told you, I gave her my word. I'll just hang back if you don't want me in your face." 

They were on the edge of a huge shallow crater that once might've been a water reservoir. Dust blew across the surface in long, graceful gusts. Aomine lifted the binoculars hanging off his chest and looked down into the basin, clearly not interested in further conversation.

"This is stupid," Kagami said, following suit. Beyond a dust cloud, a pack of bark scorpions skated across the surface in pursuit of a fire ant.

"Of all the things that could've gotten bigger and meaner, it had to be roaches and scorpions and ants," Aomine remarked. He put the binoculars down and continued walking.

_Nice change of subject,_ Kagami thought, catching up. "What do you mean, bigger?" he asked. "Did something happen in the Mojave to make them bigger?"

"No, I mean before the war. Roaches were tiny, like, fingerbone tiny. Ants were even smaller than that. You could step on a thousand of 'em at a time."

"What about scorpions?" 

"No bigger than your hand," Aomine said. "The poison was still dangerous, but at least they couldn't rip you in two. Even cazadores were small."

"How do you know all this?" Kagami asked. The idea of a small scorpion was completely preposterous. Sure, the few pre-War books he'd read for school in the Vault never mentioned scorpions at all, but he'd figured that was just because before the War, the scorpions were killed faster than they could reproduce, so most people never saw them.

"Buddy of mine liked to read books," Aomine said. "He showed me one with lots of different animals and insects and shit. It said there used to be millions of different kinds of critters around."

"Millions?" Kagami was even more dubious. "Where the hell did they all live?"

"Beats me," Aomine said. "They're gone now. That's why I wonder, why roaches? Why not, I dunno, cats?"

"What are cats?" Kagami asked.

"They were like the mortal enemy of dogs," Aomine explained. "But fluffy."

"Huh," Kagami said. "Can you introduce me to this buddy of yours?" he asked. Someone who'd read a lot of pre-War books might know stuff about Japan.

Aomine's expression darkened. "He's gone," he said.

"Sorry," Kagami offered, embarrassed. He should've realised that Aomine had been speaking in past tense. "So what are cazadores? You mentioned them before."

"Giant wasps," Aomine said, not looking at him. "Black with orange wings, and meaner than all the radscorpions put together. People say Mojave's the only place they live."

"Great," Kagami said. He knew about wasps -- one of the questions on his G.O.A.T. dealt with finding a wasp flying around in the Vault diner, and he'd had to ask the teacher to explain. They had sounded bad enough in miniature.

"Well, we won't see them around here," Aomine amended. "They like mountains. Makes it easier for them to hide in whole swarms so they can attack you all at once and kill you before you remember where you put your most expensive antivenom."

Kagami made a note on his Pip-Boy to look out for cazador poison glands when he came across a merchant. Antivenom was pretty simple once you had a sample of the poison. 

They walked on in silence, and it struck Kagami that despite Aomine being equipped like a one-man army, he moved pretty quietly. He'd stand no chance against humans in ambush, but he wasn't clanging and shuffling and drawing the attention of every bark scorpion in the area. And as far as Kagami could see, there were no likely ambush spots anywhere -- just endless plain dotted with fragrant bushes. The sun rolled on down as they walked, painting the horizon orange and pink. The sight of it -- like something straight out of a storybook -- squeezed Kagami's heart, and he looked for a distraction before he got all emotional in front of a stranger.

"So you from a vault?" he asked, gesturing at the Pip-Boy on Aomine's forearm.

"Me? Nah. Got this off a mark years ago, back when I still ran with Navarro Company," Aomine said, glancing up at the sunset briefly. He probably saw ones just like it every day.

"Well, I hope you're not getting ideas about mine," Kagami said. "It's biometric."

"Fancy," Aomine said. 

He glanced at Kagami, and it was the same look again, the one he'd first given Kagami back at the bar. Again, it made the hairs at the back of Kagami's neck rise in alarm. He'd almost forgotten about that. It wasn't danger he sensed -- there was nothing predatory in Aomine's eyes, nothing menacing or malicious. But it put Kagami on edge, like he was the only person not in on a joke.

He spied a firepit and a couple of junked-out trailers ahead. "We should make camp there," he said. "It's starting to get dark and we're out of bark scorpion territory."

"How do you know?" Aomine asked.

Kagami wasn't sure how to explain it. He was so used to keeping track of animal habitation signs that it was second nature. "We haven't seen tracks for a quarter-mile now, and they've got predictable ranging patterns. Plus, this campsite looks well-used."

"Could be a trap," Aomine said, adjusting the collar of his shirt.

Kagami rolled his eyes. "Yeah, someone dragged those trailers here without leaving any marks on the ground just to catch a couple of sad wandering assholes."

Aomine laughed, genuine and open, and met Kagami's eyes. Once again Kagami was overcome with that odd discomfort. It wasn't his gut. Just a weird feeling, as though his consciousness were an animal skin stretched to dry between four poles, with someone tugging at the edges of it. Less like a joke he wasn't in on, it felt like he'd forgotten something very important. Had they met before? Was that it?

Shaking his head slightly, Kagami set his pack down by the firepit, pulled a hex tablet from his fuel case and got a fire going. He then rolled out the tarp he used for cooking and set out the pot, cutting board, knife box, and ingredient bags, rubbed his hands down with some vodka, and got to preparing dinner. 

"You can cook?" Aomine asked as Kagami cut up the bighorner steaks he'd bought at the outpost earlier.

Kagami looked up at him, about to make fun of him for asking such a stupid question, but Aomine wore such a childlike disbelieving expression that Kagami couldn't bring himself to say it. "I've been travelling like this for a while," he said, scooping the meat into a bowl. "You learn."

In another bowl, he mixed the last of his red wine, some River City sunflower oil, pepper, and crushed bay leaves. He poured the mixture over the meat, distributed it with his hand, and put it aside. He cleaned his hands again and cut up the rest of the stew fixings -- potatoes, prickly pear fruit, and honey mesquite pods .When he'd traded with Lacey at the outpost, it turned out that they'd never even heard of carrots or green beans here. He could only hope the substitutes would work.

"You have any idea how far you could go on the Strip with skill like that?" Aomine asked as Kagami rubbed oil onto the bottom of the cooking pot. "Any of the casinos would literally kill to get you to work for them. Even the Ultra-Luxe."

Kagami's cheeks tingled with soft heat. "I don't even know what I'm making yet. These ingredients are new to me."

"Doesn't matter," Aomine said. "I can tell you're good. My old man's the best cook in Yucca Valley. I never had the talent for doing it but I know the theory well enough."

"Cooking theory?" Kagami asked, scooping the meat into the pot. "It's not science, you know. Just food"

"Whatever, you know what I mean."

When the meat browned, Kagami took out the stock he'd made last week. He'd reduced it twice, added extra salt and kept it in a sealed bottle, but it had been so hot that he couldn't be sure about it. "Does this smell off to you?" he asked Aomine, handing him the bottle. It smelled fine to him, but he'd been handling all that other food.

Aomine sniffed it. "Off?"

"Like it'd make you sick to eat it."

"No," Aomine said. "Smells like meat."

"Good," Kagami said, pouring it out over the bighorner cubes. He covered the vegetables on the cutting board with the empty meat-bowl and covered the stew pot with a lid and got up to secure the campsite. 

It turned out that both he and Aomine carried extendable tripwires, so they strung them around the site in two circles. Aomine had an insulated sleeping bag; Kagami had his camouflage lean-to, bedroll, and thermal blanket.

"Get one of these for the Mojave," Aomine said as he unrolled his sleeping bag. "You'll move around less. The mole rats are real sensitive to vibration."

Kagami returned to the pot and stirred the meat and sauce with the bone ladle from his utensil box, humming a tune to distract himself from the odd vibe Aomine gave him. Was he dangerous, after all? It didn't feel like that.

"What song is that?" Aomine asked. He'd unloaded all his guns except for the two sidearms and sat across from Kagami, eating an apple.

"It's called _By a Campfire on the Trail_ ," Kagami said, a little embarrassed. Talk about the most obvious song to hum while cooking at a campfire.

"Well, I'll be damned," Aomine said, his voice soft. "My ma knows that song too. I forgot about it until now."

"So it's not all desert ranger rock here, you've got some nice prairie tunes too, huh?" Kagami asked, scooping the vegetables into the bubbling meat sauce.

"Maybe just my ma," Aomine said. "She always makes friends with migrant tribals, picks up their songs and sayings. It's all the same handful of songs on the radio stations."

_So both his parents are still alive, it sounds like,_ Kagami thought with a jealous pang. "What about Black Mountain Radio?" he asked.

Aomine made a face. "That's just the super mutant talk show," he said. "They have some kind of utopia up there, radiation being off the charts and all. Crazier than shithouse mole rats."

Kagami sighed. So much for scavenging the area for vertibird parts.

Aomine pulled a boxed Salisbury steak out of his pack. "Anyway, I can't cook, so I'll go ahead with my dinner."

Kagami never judged what other people chose to eat. There wasn't enough food to go around in the first place, and most everyone, him included, eventually ended up eating the boxed, chemically preserved, irradiated junk from two hundred years ago. But not judging didn't mean he _liked_ seeing human beings eat that garbage.

"I'm making enough for both of us," he said, nodding at the pot over the fire. "So if you can wait a bit, it'll be done soon."

Aomine put the boxed junk food away and pulled out a small sack full of bottle caps. "How much do you want?" he asked.

Kagami was about to decline, but he took a look at Aomine's face and saw that he really _wanted_ to eat Kagami's food. Kagami guessed Aomine didn't want to feel indebted, and he could respect that.

"Two caps," he said.

Aomine's eyebrows drew together. "For a hand-prepared meal?"

Kagami met his eyes. "That's my price."

He couldn't be sure -- night's shadows had gathered around them already, and Aomine's skin was dark -- but he thought that for a moment, in a rare flicker of the chemical flame, he saw Aomine blush. _Why?_

Aomine counted out ten caps and leaned over the pot to hand them over. "Here. Plus tip."

Kagami pocketed the caps with the wry thought that a mercenary was giving _him_ money.

While the stew finished cooking, he found a couple of tin cans and rinsed them out with vodka and then a bit of water.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Aomine asked. "First your hands, now the cans. Does it make the food taste better?"

"Vodka's a disinfectant and doesn't have any additives to make it sticky when it dries," Kagami explained. "I use it to clean just about everything."

"We're full of rads anyway," Aomine said. "What's a microbe gonna do?"

"I--" Kagami, once again, was struck by how much his outlook was still influenced by the Vault, where radiation wasn't an everyday constant but a terrifying nightmare monster. "I never thought of it that way."

"Vault rat, huh," Aomine said, looking at him intently.

Kagami bit his lip. "Well, I guess. Let's eat."

It wasn't the flavour of stew he'd wanted to eat, but it was fine and filling. The prickly pear fruit had more texture than taste, and the honey mesquite pods had gone a bit mushier than he'd expected. _Should've put them in a bit later than the rest._

He glanced at Aomine. It had been a while since he'd cooked for more than one, and he'd forgotten the unease of waiting for that first reaction, no matter how many times he told himself that he didn't need to care about what others think. But in this case, Aomine had given him enough caps to buy ingredients for two more meals, so maybe he was allowed to care a little.

Aomine swallowed the first mouthful and squared Kagami with a determined gaze. _His eyes are the same colour as the night sky,_ Kagami thought inexplicably.

"So, you married?" Aomine asked.

"M-me?" Kagami asked with a frown. What a strange question. "No?"

"Marry me then. I'll give you everything as long as you keep making food like this."

Kagami rolled his eyes. "We don't have to get married for that to happen."

"I guess that's true." Aomine smiled.

Kagami smiled back. He wasn't even sure if it was automatic this time. He knew Aomine wasn't serious, but it was a nice compliment. The best compliment he'd gotten about his food since he'd travelled with Kuroko, in fact.

"So what's your story?" Kagami asked after they both finished their second helpings.

Aomine unscrewed the top of a whiskey bottle. "You've crossed an entire continent to be here and you wanna know _my_ story?"

"Well, I already know mine. And I don't see anyone else here with a story." Kagami gestured at the glowing embers.

"Campfire stories are supposed to be spooky," Aomine said after a swig of whiskey.

"Every story's spooky in its own way," Kagami countered. "We're in the wasteland."

"Well, there ain't much to tell," Aomine said. "And none of it is spooky. I'm no wastelander -- NCR born and raised, grew up in a farming village called Yucca Valley."

"Cattle?"

"Mostly, yeah. Wasn't my kind of living, though. After my sister was born, I left to make my own way."

"Sister," Kagami said, feeling the word fill his head. He'd always wanted a sister. Probably would never stop pretending, secretly, that Alex had been his sister. "Two kids in the same family? Lucky parents." 

"Less lucky when you've gotta feed two," Aomine said, offering the whiskey bottle. "I babysat Satsuki until she was old enough to go off to the maize fields with ma, then I left to join the army."

"Didn't make it there?" Kagami guessed. He took a drink from the bottle and handed it back to Aomine. The whiskey tore its way down his gullet, filling him with soft warmth.

"Nope. Met a Navarro Company recruiter in a bar while passing through the Hub on my way to Shady Sands. Paid better than the NCR, better promotion structure, better gear. Hey, I was fourteen. Long term plans weren't my strong point. Still aren't."

Kagami glanced over Aomine's clothes but saw no company insignia. "So what went wrong?"

"Bosses got greedy, bad shit happened," Aomine said, glancing away. "I don't talk about it. Been a free agent ever since." He looked at Kagami. "So what about you? Cass says you're looking to drown yourself in the Pacific."

"No, I want to go to Japan," Kagami said with a frown.

Aomine took another drink and shrugged. "Same difference. No way to cross all that water from here."

"I'll make a way," Kagami said. He didn't always believe it, but he always said it. "I'm surprised you know what it is. Most people think I'm talking about some town."

"Most people aren't Japanese," Aomine remarked, offering him the bottle.

Kagami shook his head, declining. "That's true." So he _had_ been right about that.

"My old man was pretty gung-ho about making sure I knew my roots," Aomine offered. "Same as his da was with him. I bet the two of them are making my poor sister learn all those endless fucking lists of prehistoric warlord names right about now."

"What do warlord names have to do with anything?"

"Fucked if I know, but they're always going on about Uesugi this and Takeda that. And the drunker they get, the more superpowered the warlords."

Kagami pulled up a larger map on his Pip-Boy and located Yucca Valley to the southwest. If his travel to the coast took him there, he might just look up Aomine's family and ask about these warlords. 

Aomine finished the last of the whiskey and tossed the bottle out into the pitch-black darkness that surrounded their little campsite. "There. Now you know my story. What's yours?" He was slurring a little.

Kagami glanced at the campfire, which was just about burnt out. A chill was settling into his skin from the night air. The soles of his feet thrummed with a day's worth of walking. "It's a long story and I'm tired," he said. "I'll tell it another time." That wasn't really a lie. Who knew? Maybe their paths would cross again someday.

He climbed into his bedroll and counted the stars, waiting for Aomine to fall asleep so he could pack up and sneak off. He would leave the stew pot behind; pots of all sizes littered the wasteland in abundance. 

But Aomine just wouldn't sleep. He sighed and fussed and rolled to and fro, but his breathing never grew even. Kagami stole a couple of glances at him through a threadbare gap in his blanket. Both times, he was looking in Kagami's direction, eyes bright in the darkness. _Has he figured out that I'm planning to leave? Is he guarding me now?_

What had Aomine said about the casinos -- that they'd kill for a cook like Kagami? Maybe Aomine had a change of heart about keeping his word to Miss Cassidy. Maybe he'd safeguard Kagami all the way to New Vegas and then sell him to the highest bidding casino boss. A freelancing merc could easily be working with slavers, and New Vegas wasn't NCR territory yet. _If_ he was a freelancer. Intently, Kagami listened for any response from his instincts, but none came. He still sensed no danger from Aomine. His eyelids were heavy. _Wait, what was in that drink…?_

He woke with the sun's earliest rays and found Aomine sitting cross-legged on top of his folded sleeping bag, cleaning his shotgun.

"How are you awake enough to do that?" Kagami muttered, searching in the side pocket of his pack for his toothbrush and baking soda tin.

"Nuka Cola," Aomine said, holding up a bottle. Four others lay on the ground beside his gun cleaning kit. He lodged the gun barrel into place and screwed the magazine cap back on.

Kagami dipped the toothbrush in a bottle of purified water, then in the baking soda, and brushed his teeth. In the four years he'd wandered, he hadn't come across any toothpaste, and sometimes he wondered if they'd _really_ had toothpaste at the Vault or if it was just something he'd dreamed up since leaving.

Aomine held up the cola again. "Why bother with all that? Just use this stuff. Swish it around for a minute, spit it out, and you're good to go."

"That'll corrode your teeth in the end," Kagami said around the toothbrush.

"So I'll rent an Auto-Doc and get new ones."

Kagami spat out the baking soda. "I don't have that kind of capital."

He rinsed his toothbrush with a bit of water, rinsed his mouth with a bit more, and tucked it back inside the bag. His fingers brushed against a canvas drawstring pouch he'd forgotten to take out last night: it contained the last bit of bread he'd made last time he'd stayed in a house with an oven. He gave half of it to Aomine and they finished off the stew, then packed up and started making their way northeast, towards Novac.

They had just climbed the first of the low hills in their path when Aomine froze, unslung his rifle, and gestured for Kagami to stop.

"Fuck my luck," Aomine said through clenched teeth. "I'm out of sleeping gas; we'll have to fight them."

Kagami's heart dropped. "Who?"

Aomine pointed down a slope leading to a ragged cave-mouth.

Outside the cave, at least a dozen coyotes stood snarling in their general direction.

[to be continued]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note that while I am incorporating stuff (e.g. items and recipes) from all the available DLCs for FONV, the special radio signals are absent from Kagami's (and Aomine's) Pip-Boys, and they will not be visiting the Divide, Sierra Madre, Zion Valley, or the Big MT. I think that the storylines for the DLCs exist thematically only for Courier Six (and relevant NPCs), and putting AoKaga on location would certainly interfere with that, especially in the case of Sierra Madre.


	3. You'll Know When it Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aomine's upward spiral is only beginning. Featuring a weird ability, the difference between coyotes and raiders, Aomine's stellar communication skills, a view into Kagami's past (and present), some fundamentals of trail medicine, The Wasteland Survival Guide, a few secrets of varying importance, and basketball (but only a little).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow is this ever late. You see, I, uh, started playing Elder Scrolls Online. /o\ Then I went to Otakon. But I'm back! ~~Mostly.~~ Anyway, here's chapter 3. Enjoy! :D
> 
> Title from _You'll Know When it Happens_ by Frank Sinatra.

Aomine was trying to remember if he had a frag grenade left when Kagami emitted a whistle, quiet yet oddly so high-pitched it made the back of Aomine's neck feel funny. All of the coyotes turned in its direction. The two nearest Aomine gave low growls like befuddled dogs might.

"Back away," Kagami said. "And don't make eye contact; it tells them you're picking a fight."

"How am I supposed to defend myself if I don't see--"

"You won't have to defend yourself, just do what I tell you," Kagami snapped. "Look at their feet and back away."

"Paws," Aomine muttered, obeying. The coyotes _had_ stopped snarling. Weird.

"What?"

"They're animals, so they have paws. Not feet."

Kagami rolled his eyes and crouched, setting his pack down to the side. "Whatever you say, professor. Now don't make any sudden movements."

The pair of coyotes near the front of the pack headed in their direction, the rest having grown eerily quiet. One of the two came over to Aomine and sniffed the air around his knees while the other one put its scratched-up muzzle so close to Kagami's face that Aomine's fingers itched for a gun. He'd seen people torn apart by animals in the wasteland, but he wasn't going to let that happen to _this_ person.

The coyotes turned around and loped silently back to their den.

Aomine stared after them. "What."

Kagami shouldered his pack again. "Come on, let's get around them before we annoy them again." He brushed past Aomine as he made for the right side of the hill.

 _Again?_ Aomine wondered. _How did we annoy them before?_ He'd heard stories of people who could talk to animals but everyone knew that was just a tribal superstition. Animals couldn't be reasoned with. "Are you magic?" he blurted out, following Kagami.

Kagami glanced back at him, frowning. "Magic? What are you talking about?"

"You fucking talked the coyotes into backing down, what do you _think_ I'm talking about?" Aomine exclaimed. Though the danger was gone, adrenaline still coursed through him, looking for a fight.

"I didn't talk them into anything. I just let them know we weren't enemies and they believed me."

"You did all that with that noise you made?"

"I guess. I dunno how it works, I'm no scientist. Lady I travelled with taught me how to use it -- works on any animal that doesn't consider humans prey. If you put your weapons away and don't act hostile, they have no reason to fight you. They're not stupid."

Aomine chanced a look over his shoulder. Nothing was coming after them. Now that the danger had passed, he felt like he'd lost, somehow -- standing around wondering if he had a grenade while Kagami got them out of trouble with zero effort. Why did Cass think this guy needed anyone's help?

And since he hated losing more than anything, he decided to try and win an argument, at least. "Sure they're stupid," he said. "They attack first _all_ the damn time."

Kagami gave him a brief sidelong glance. "Of course they'll do that if you blunder around their territory without telling them why you're there. People do the same thing, especially raiders."

"But raiders are stupid," Aomine pointed out. "Or they wouldn't be raiders." 

Kagami blinked. "Okay, true. But coyotes aren't."

Aomine grinned. "Aren't raiders?"

"Aren't stupid," Kagami insisted. His eyes met Aomine's, but he quickly looked away.

 _Look at me,_ Aomine thought. He'd sort of won the argument, but still felt like he was at a disadvantage. Why? _Look at me._

Kagami didn't. "Sharra could even make them help her fight, but she wouldn't teach me how," he said, almost as though to himself.

"Sharra, huh. So, what was she like?" Aomine asked, knowing full well it was none of his business. "What's the story there?"

"Where?"

"You and Sharra. Did you have a thing?" _Say yes. Say she's your wife. Say you're gonna have fifty thousand babies. I don't want to feel like this._

"Have a--? What? No! It wasn't like that. I'm not interested in -- uh." Kagami turned aside and increased the distance between them. They were almost back at the old interstate by now, with Nipton's strange smoke plume well behind them.

 _So you're not into women? Looks like we do have something in common after all,_ Aomine wanted to say, but his mouth wouldn't move. The tops of Kagami's ears had turned bright pink, and it was so cute Aomine didn't know what to do with himself. That never happened. That wasn't _supposed_ to happen. He was a bounty hunter who had run contracts for all the Strip families; a seasoned combatant skilled with just about every kind of weapon. When he walked around Westside, even the militia gave way. He wasn't supposed to just stand here like a goddamned lakelurk on a shore, mouth trying to form words he couldn't find. 

Besides, maybe Kagami just meant he wasn't interested in cheating on his one true lady love. Wishful thinking had never gotten anyone anywhere, last Aomine had checked. "Hey, I was just kidding around," he muttered finally. "Didn't mean to embarrass you."

"I'm not _embarrassed_ ," Kagami scoffed, eyes on the horizon. "I don't have to answer your nosy questions."

"Hey, I told you _my_ story," Aomine returned, slightly encouraged. "You still haven't told me yours."

"I told you, it's long."

"I've got all day." Aomine nodded in the direction of Novac. "So do you."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, tiny rocks crunching between the soles of their boots and the crack-ridden asphalt. The air was warm, and the smell of burning tires was all but gone.

Kagami took a sip of water from his canteen and gave a resigned sort of sigh. "I was born in a vault," he said. "Vault 101 in the Capital Wasteland. They call it that because that's where the capital city used to be." His words flowed easily, as though he'd told the story many times. He must have, if he'd crossed the whole continent with it. Wasn't much else to do on the trail except swap stories. "The vault wasn't far across the river from the ruined city."

"A real river, with water in it?" Aomine asked.

"Sure. Not much water, though, compared to some I've seen," Kagami said. "Most of my life I didn't even know there was a river. We were told the vault would stay closed because the war made it so people could never live on the surface again."

"Did they check it out or just assume the surface was off limits?" Aomine asked.

"No, it turned out the Overseer was lying. I don't really get it, but the whole vault was part of some kind of social experiment."

"I've heard people talking about that kind of thing," Aomine offered. "Some say Vault-Tec was just a government front and all the vaults had experiments running in them, without the people knowing."

"I've heard that on the road too," Kagami said. "I don't really want it to be true though."

"Why not?"

Kagami rolled his shoulders back and took another sip of water. "'Cause it was nice being a kid in that place. Clean water, toilets that flush, decent food, medical care. School and sports, too. It's not a bad life until you find out it's all bullshit."

"But you already did find out," Aomine said, puzzled. "What do you care if all the other vaults are the same?"

"I dunno," Kagami said. "I guess I don't have a reason to care. It's just nice to think that somebody somewhere's gonna live and die comfortable and happy. For real happy, not just happy because they don't know better."

 _Great, we've got a regular saint here,_ Aomine thought. Older folks often spoke of yearning for a life they'd never experienced -- the pre-War life, red checkerboard tablecloths and shit. He'd never understood what that felt like, but maybe he did now. Kagami's eyes had a faraway look in them, and the middle of Aomine's chest felt strangely hollow.

"You're weird," he said. "Caring about others only gets you killed."

"Mind your own business," Kagami shot back, his eyes clear again. "I've stayed alive so far without your advice."

Unable to come up with a suitable retort, Aomine bristled. At the same time, he felt a strong rush of affection. Why he would feel such a thing while being told off was anyone's goddamned guess. It had barely been a day since the two of them met, but if Kagami didn't stop doing whatever it was he was doing to make Aomine feel like this, Aomine didn't know what was going to happen to him. 

"So how'd you find out it was all a lie, anyway?" he asked.

"The vault doctor used a radroach infestation as a cover to get out," Kagami said.

Aomine frowned. "Radroaches? How the hell did you have those if the vault was sealed?"

"Oh, that was a lie too. The doc who ran away, he was from the surface. The Overseer let him come and live in the Vault in exchange for medical services."

"Why bother with the vault in the first place?" Aomine wondered out loud. "He could've just stayed on the surface."

"Because of his daughter," Kagami said, his expression a little wistful. "The Capital Wasteland is a horrible place, way worse than here. Super mutants everywhere, nothing really grows, so there's never enough food. It's no place for a child."

"So what, he spends a couple of years in the vault for his kid's sake then abandons her to be raised by strangers? What a prince."

"Oh, Alex was already nineteen. She followed her dad out, and that was basically when it all went to hell."

"She leave the door open behind her for the raiders?"

"No, nothing like that. It was just that vault security tried real hard to keep her from leaving. Made a lot of us wonder if maybe she and her dad weren't going to their deaths. We started thinking, what if the Overseer wasn't telling us the truth about the outside world?"

"So this girl followed her dad out and you all followed?" Aomine guessed. _Were you sweet on her?_ The stars in Kagami's eyes were hard to ignore.

"Not at first. We just kept meeting to talk about how we could find out the truth, and it became a kind of resistance movement, I guess. The Overseer didn't like it and started sending security after us, but since his daughter Amata was our ringleader, they'd just tell us to break it up and go back to our rooms."

"How old were you all?" Aomine asked. The whole thing sounded like a bunch of brats playing rangers and raiders to him.

"There were people of all ages," Kagami said. "I was eighteen."

"So let me guess, one night security roughed somebody up a bit much, things got out of hand, out went the vault door?" Vault 34 up near the South Vegas ruins had ended somewhat like that, he'd heard.

"Do you wanna hear the story or not?" Kagami snapped, then continued without waiting for Aomine's response. "Eventually Amata broke into her dad's files and found proof that there were people living outside the vaults for decades. That the previous Overseer went missing in the wasteland himself. That was when her dad started threatening to shoot people."

"Guys in power like to do that," Aomine remarked, earning a small grin that made him feel like he'd just hit triple orange slots at the Atomic Wrangler.

"Anyway, Amata sent out a radio signal for Alex to come back and help us. None of us expected her to show up, but she did. Picked the broadcast up by chance resupplying in a nearby town and came right back."

Those stars in Kagami's eyes were just hero-worship. They had to be. Kagami gazed into the distance, probably remembering Alex -- whom Aomine pictured as one of those female troopers on the NCR recruitment posters -- walking into the vault with a lot more weapons than she'd left with. "And?" Aomine prompted.

"And ended it," Kagami said with a small shrug. "Came into the clinic where we were barricaded against security, talked a bit with everyone. Then went to the Overseer's office."

Aomine raised his eyebrows. "No shots fired?"

"Some shots were fired," Kagami admitted. "Nobody died, though. I dunno what Alex and the Overseer talked about, but when they were done, Amata was the new Overseer, we would be allowed out of the vault, and Alex was never coming back."

"Is that why you left, to follow her?" Aomine asked, staring at the side of the road. It figured, really. The ones he really liked were always taken.

"I left months later. Alex was already in the wind," Kagami said. "There was no finding her. I just had to get out of that place for good."

Kagami's voice sounded strange, and Aomine glanced at him. His eyes were flat, unseeing, like he was in the middle of a bad memory. The kind he wouldn't want a stranger asking about. Anyone living in the wasteland knew that look.

"And here I thought she taught you everything about living in the wastes," Aomine said, stopping to adjust his pack straps.

"She taught me everything about baseball," Kagami offered, his expression softer.

"I hate baseball," Aomine said quickly. He did, and he liked to discourage people from trying to talk to him about it, early and often.

Kagami grinned. "Me too. It takes too long."

Aomine grinned back. "Exactly. You ever play basketball?"

"Some," Kagami said. "A couple of buddies taught me while I was staying at the Underworld. One of them was a professional player before the war." Kagami checked his Pip-Boy, then shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand and peered into the distance. "I'm gonna need to find some sunglasses. Does it ever rain here?"

"Almost never," Aomine said. "Did you say before the war? You made friends with a ghoul?"

Kagami gave him a mildly irritated look. "Got a problem with ghouls?"

"Not unless they're feral," Aomine said. "I just figured they'd be your worst nightmare, coming from a vault and all."

Kagami resumed walking with a tiny shake of his head. "I was expecting arms growing out of heads, that kind of thing. First time I met a ghoul, I asked if her skin condition was catching. She laughed for a week."

Aomine, not for the first time during this conversation, caught himself wishing he'd been there to see that. Wishing they'd met sooner, somehow. He hadn't felt like this since he'd met Tetsu. "So this former basketball pro, I bet he was good at it," he said as they started up an incline from a crater in the road.

Kagami gave him a once-over. "Better than you, probably."

"No one can beat me at basketball," Aomine scoffed.

"I bet I could," Kagami said.

Aomine's pulse quickened. "I've got fifty caps here that say otherwise."

Kagami's eyes flared in challenge, but he turned away. "I don't gamble."

Aomine laughed. "Then you're in the wrong place. What's in New Vegas for you, if not gambling?""

"Mr. House," Kagami said. "A friend I made on the road said he's my best chance for answers about how I can get to Japan."

"Whoever told you that isn't your friend," Aomine objected. "That guy _is_ a big deal, sure, but he doesn't mingle with riff-raff like us. You can't just walk into the Lucky 38 and talk to him."

"I know," Kagami said. "My friend explained that to me. But I have to try. If it doesn't work, I'll just move on."

Aomine's heart sank. That wasn't at all what he'd expected. He'd thought Kagami would spend some time gambling and either win the fortune he needed to somehow make it to Japan or lose everything and give up. Travel past the Mojave border hadn't been in his plans when he'd told Cass he would keep his promise. "Move on where?" he asked.

Kagami fiddled with the map controls on his Pip-Boy for a bit. "Dayglow, I guess."

"Dayglow, huh," Aomine murmured, heart sinking deeper. This was going to be really fucking bad for business. He didn't know a goddamned soul that far south. _Damn Cass and her great ideas._ But he couldn't think of a way to get out of this. Worse, he didn't _want_ to get out of it. Even though he would have to, one way or another -- he had an active contract and three more in the wings.

Kagami veered off towards a patch of mostly dried-out broc plants and picked a few of the flowers. Aomine chased the Dayglow stuff out of mind. Nothing to be gained from dwelling on it now.

"For healing powder?" he asked as Kagami fell back into step beside him, wrapping the flowers in a scrap of cloth from his pocket.

Kagami gave him an appraising look. "You know it. Nothing beats that stuff for cuts and such."

"Don't look so surprised," Aomine muttered. "Just because I can't cook doesn't make me useless at a campfire."

"I'm just surprised it grows out here," Kagami said. He was obviously lying, but it made Aomine feel better. Someone he had a crush on was trying to spare his feelings. True romance.

As they walked on, Kagami seemed to stop near just about every plant. He never picked the whole thing clean, either, always leaving some to continue growing.

"How do you know which ones are poison?" Aomine asked. Even he had no idea what half those things did, and he'd been in the Mojave for years.

"I don't," Kagami said. "I can make an antidote for just about anything, though."

"What if it's so fast acting it kills you in a second?" When Aomine was a kid, his ma had once told him not to eat apple seeds because they had poison in them. Years later he had found out that he'd need to eat a barrelful of seeds for a lethal dose, but to this day he avoided swallowing the things. Just in case.

"I don't think any plants like that are around since the war," Kagami said. "At least I've never seen any."

"You know them all?"

"There aren't many that kill you quickly. Couple dozen. Doc James had a book on 'em in his clinic. I always planned on getting out, so I took notes on my Pip-Boy just in case."

Once again Aomine found himself trying to imagine the length of Kagami's journey and drawing a big fat blank. He was always on the road, but crisscrossing the Mojave multiple times just didn't have the same impact. "So how long did it take you to get here?" he asked. "Once you started making your way over, I mean."

Kagami shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by started. I spent a year in the Underworld after I first left the vault, doing odd jobs and cooking. Talked to a lot of the locals and drifters, learned a lot. If I'd just wandered out into the wasteland, I'd have died in a month."

"Too bad you didn't have the _Wasteland Survival Guide_ ," Aomine quipped. "It's a new book that people say has some pretty decent tips."

Kagami beamed and extracted a battered copy of a thin book from his back pocket. "This one? It came out in the Capital wasteland about four years ago." He flipped to the title page. "Check this out," he said, marking a line of text with his thumb.

_Lead Author and Subject Matter Expert: Alexandra Garcia_

"Who's that?" Aomine asked.

"Alex," Kagami replied, pocketing the book again.

"You're telling me _your_ Alex wrote it?"

"I think that other lady did the writing," Kagami said. "Miss Brown; she runs a supply shop back east. But Alex did the legwork. Have you read it?"

"I'm not much of a reader," Aomine said. The letters liked to wander and become jumbled if he stared at too many at of them all at once. Kagami didn't need to know that, though.

"Me neither," Kagami said. "But that's pretty much the only way to find anything out these days."

"Unless you're Brotherhood," Aomine said. "I hear those guys have talking computers with everything on them. Maybe they're a better bet than Mr. House for the info you need."

Kagami shook his head. "Those types would sooner kill you than share information."

"They try to act like that here too," Aomine offered. The Brotherhood of Steel had just recently been evicted from a power plant further north. "But the NCR isn't having any of it."

"Good," Kagami said with a heavy frown. "They have a choke-hold on DC. No real society or trade there, just a few tiny settlements scattered in the wasteland. Anyone could run the show there if they wanted."

"Is it really that bad back there?" Aomine asked.

Kagami gestured around them. "It's nothing like this. It's grey and dirty. Some days when the super mutants and the Brotherhood are really going at it above ground, the dust makes a fog around everything and it's hard to breathe."

"Why are the super mutants fighting the Brotherhood of Steel?" Aomine asked. 

"Hell if I know," Kagami said. "Why do the super mutants do anything?"

"The ones here keep to themselves down Jacobstown way. They don't bother anyone, for the most part."

"The DC ones kidnap people to make more super mutants. Between them and the cannibal raiders, it's a wonder anyone leaving a settlement survives."

"So how _did_ you survive?" Aomine asked.

"By not leaving the Underworld until I knew where I was going and how I was gonna get there," Kagami said. "I ended up there by accident. Holed up in a town called Megaton for a few weeks, running errands to keep myself fed, then set out for the Washington ruins. Travelled mostly when it was dark, hid inside ruins to sleep. Figured the big library would have at least some maps left over, but what I thought was the library was actually an old history museum with a ghoul city underneath. That's the Underworld. It's just about the only safe place in the area."

"The ghouls just let you live with them even though you're a smoothskin?"

"They don't care what you are as long as you don't cause trouble and do your share of the work," Kagami said with a shrug. "Plus they liked my cooking."

"Speaking of food, I wanna take a break," Aomine said.

They found a camp spot, and Aomine was about to ask if Kagami wanted some of his boxed cram when Kagami calmly unslung his laser rifle, aimed it and fired several bursts in quick succession. By the time Aomine finished turning to see what he was shooting at, the gecko was already down.

"Lunch," Kagami said. "And dinner."

He made quick work of the gecko carcass and buried what he couldn't use. Watching him at it, Aomine once again had trouble believing that this guy came from the same stock as the former vault residents who now ran the Vegas Strip. He'd never been to the Strip himself but he'd seen them in Freeside -- not the fancy higher-ups, of course; those sorts didn't leave the Strip without full suits of power armour. But even the errand runners and curious tourists always struck him as soft and weirdly abstracted from everything around them. They behaved as though one day they would wake up in their happy pre-war affluence, with the horrors of the wasteland and the rest of the post-nuclear survivors having been ghosts from scary dreams.

Kagami, though, was unquestionably _here_ , huge and redheaded and impossible to ignore. He talked with a slight accent that was hard to pin down and sometimes used words Aomine had never heard before. He drew Aomine's gaze like the sun at dawn, and when he looked at Aomine or spoke to him, it focussed Aomine's attention like nothing else. All this felt very different from just having a little crush, and it was pissing him off the more he thought about it. So he decided to try and not think about it.

Kagami stuck chunks of gecko meat on thin metal skewers and grilled them right over the pale chemical flame, using the cuff of his shirt to hold them so the heated metal wouldn't burn his fingers. He passed the first finished one to Aomine as if they shared food every day, and Aomine's chest filled up in a way he wasn't used to, even as he counted out ten caps and put them in Kagami's hand. Kagami looked as reluctant to take the money as he had last night.

The food tasted as incredible as it had last night, too. Aomine had once bought something similar from Genaro in Freeside, but old Genaro cooked all of his stuff in the same pot, so even the nicer cuts tasted like unseasoned radroach.

With the rest of the gecko salted down and packed away for later, they resumed their journey north. Kagami told him more about the DC wasteland and about the time he'd spent in River City. He'd run into some raiders who would have seen him dead if not for a passing band of tribals on their way to trade with the townsfolk. It was while convalescing in River City that he'd met Kuroko, the friend who'd told him about Mr. House. 

Once Kagami's injuries had healed, he'd set off on the last leg of his journey, which had taken him through areas so irradiated he'd had to go around, and sometimes the radiation patches were so large the detours took weeks. As he'd neared the NCR border, a couple of times he'd even been within a hair's breadth of roving Caesar's Legion slaver patrols. Good thing those guys made themselves easy to spot with their weird uniforms.

The two of them were about three quarters of the way to Novac when shadows began to gather, so they made camp at the foot of a mid-sized rock formation. 

"One thing that I still don't get -- why didn't you just ask this Kuroko to come with you?" Aomine asked after half-climbing into his sleeping bag. "If he's from the NCR, he could've just come back with you. Safety in numbers and all that." _Then I wouldn't have met you, and that would've been just fine, because nothing good's going to come out of this. Not for me._

"He told me he was never going back to New California," Kagami said. "It sounded real personal, so I never asked."

"Debt collectors," Aomine guessed. "That's the main reason most people run."

Kagami pulled the blanket over his head. "The world gets destroyed over resources and we go right back to obsessing over who's got more stuff."

Aomine couldn't think of anything to say in response. Moments later, Kagami tuned to Mojave Music Radio on his Pip-Boy and turned away from the moonlight spilling across their campsite.

Aomine lay with his eyes half-shut, hoping to get at least a little sleep, knowing it wasn't going to happen. He couldn't rest properly without real walls between him and the wasteland, no matter how much he drank. He could drift away into a half-conscious state, but he could never sleep.

 _You need a roof to sleep under?_ Kagami had asked him yesterday, and Aomine still didn't know why he'd lied in response. Technically, it wasn't a lie. He didn't give a fuck about a roof: walls were what he needed. What he didn't need was to look weak, especially in front of Kagami. 

They'd be in Novac by noonish: he would just sweet-talk Jeannie May into letting them crash in one of the motel rooms. Then he'd restock on Nuka-Cola before they went anywhere else.

He sat back up and took a deep swig from his whiskey bottle, then held it up to the full moon, fat and bright in the endless Mojave sky. Warmth filled him, good and cosy, even if it wasn't enough to put him to sleep. This was all so fucking stupid. Just two weeks ago, he'd been with some buddies, drinking and betting ringside at the Thorn, sure of where he was in life and where he meant to go from there.

Then Kagami showed up. Barely twenty-four hours later, Aomine had been thinking about going to Dayglow. _Dayglow._ Sure, he tried to tell himself it was all Cass's fault, but Cass would never say he broke his word if he didn't follow Kagami to goddamned Dayglow. Hell, Cass probably didn't really give a shit if Aomine kept his word in the first place. And if she cared, what would she do? Go on Radio New Vegas and declare that a Mojave bounty hunter wasn't a man of his word? Laughable. Truth was, now that he was with Kagami, he just didn't want to be anywhere else, and wasn't _that_ a kick in the head?

_Shit._

"What you said about your Overseer," Aomine muttered, his tongue a little heavy. "Why did it even matter to any of you that he was lying? Why not stay put?"

For all he knew, tomorrow the NCR bigwigs would announce that they were joining forces with Caesar's Legion. Sure, it'd be hard to believe and people would have a lot of questions, but in the end it wouldn't change anyone's lives much. Most folks would go on scratching out their existences as best they could. The world never changed, not for anything.

Kagami turned to him again. "We had to leave if we wanted to survive. Locked vaults aren't a long term solution."

"Solution to what?" Aomine asked.

"What else? Any vault will end up with a bunch of inbred monsters if it doesn't open. So it makes no sense to stay inside if we can come out."

Aomine laughed. "What, to repopulate?"

"What's funny about that?" Kagami asked. "That's the point, isn't it? Otherwise we might as well have stayed out of the vaults and gone extinct in the first place."

"Humanity _is_ going extinct," Aomine said. "There are too many ways to die and only a few places where it's safe to be born."

Kagami gazed at him with a thoughtful expression. Aomine's heartbeat picked up speed, and he wondered if his face was at least relatively clean. He hadn't seen a mirror in a week, and the moonlight was too bright.

"We don't know what's on the other side of the ocean," Kagami said finally, and turned his back to Aomine again, huddling into the blanket.

Aomine felt like someone had just brained him with a lead pipe. Tetsu used to say the same thing, word for word, whenever they would talk about this kind of stuff.

_You'll know when it happens, you won't have to guess--_

Kagami turned off his Pip-Boy radio, cutting the song off.

Several explosions boomed from somewhere in Primm's direction. After the last of the roaring echoes died, night's silence crept back in, empty but heavy.

Restlessly, Aomine dozed.

[tbc]


End file.
